asked the Minister for Communications the purpose for which the existing statutory scheme of licensing of apparatus for wireless telegraphy is intended to achieve; and if he will make a statement on the matter.
Written Answers. - Statutory Scheme of Licensing.
49.
All member states party to the International Telecommunications Union — which, being a specialised agency of the United Nations, effectively embraces all UN member states—operate statutory licensing or similarly compatible régimes for wireless telegraphy to ensure the orderly and beneficial use of the radio frequency spectrum.
The radio frequency is a finite natural resource used by a wide variety of services ranging from aeronautical and maritime communications services to mobile communications such as those used by security, emergency and business services, telecommunications links, broadcasting services, space communications, radio astromony, etc. It is a resource which is shared and which is subject to pollution, through interference between or among services. Furthermore, radio waves do not stop at national boundaries. Its effective use therefore requires planning and co-operation at international level in the first instance.
The International Telecommunications Union in Geneva is the primary body concerned with the international regulation of the radio frequency spectrum. International agreements on the use of the spectrum are reached at administrative conferences held by the ITU. These agreements become part of the international radio regulations which lay down, often in considerable detail, how individual countries may or may not use the spectrum. The constraints imposed by these regulations are the price which each country has to pay for the benefits of a measure of international order and co-existence among radio services.
The Wireless Telegraphy Acts, 1926-1988, which create the statutory licensing scheme for wireless telegraphy apparatus, are essentially the vehicle through which regulation of the spectrum is effected at national level. By requiring such apparatus to be licensed the regulatory body — which is the Department of Communications — ensure that the various services operate in the segment of the spectrum and in accordance with parameters laid down at international level, that the spectrum is used efficiently and that interference between different services or within similar services is avoided both nationally and internationally.